Mounted search and rescue

[MSAR <msar@ibiblio.org>]

In heavy secondary growth, where a stick poking you in the eye is a high
risk, it can be dangerous and not very effective to search or track
while riding.  This applies especially off trail, but can be an issue on
trail too.

I have bushwhacked many times on horseback, so far without injury, but
I have had trees do the following:

1.  Rip my glasses off my face and throw them to the ground.  I could
not see my glasses so I remained in the saddle while my team mates
looked.  I was not blind without them;  I had spare glasses in my 
saddle bag.  But the lost glasses were buried under leaf litter so I
did what I could to ensure they did not get crushed before discovery.
I stayed mounted to ensure I did not dismount onto them and to keep
my horse from taking any more steps.

2.  Rip my sleeve while jumping a log.  This caused the mission safety
officer some concern until he saw for himself that my skin was intact.

3.  Run a twig up my nose.  This could have been a serious injury, but
it was just a small nosebleed.  I was lucky it was one of those dainty
virgin tree branch tips, not the jagged pointy stick left behind from
an amateur's idea of "clearing trail".

My experience has been that the riders need a break before the horses
do.  Searching is mental hard work and mental fatigue can be rapid and
extreme.  Also, think about the logistics of leaving a spare horse
behind at the trailer.  Will you need someone to stay on watch there?
Think about both safety and security, and also about the best use of
available persons.  It is always good to have some flexibility in the
trailer loads.  We often trailer one another's horses to save on fuel
costs and use the trailers most appropriate to the mission.  I would
say in about half our missions for some reason we end up mixing and
matching horses and trailers.  Sometimes the horses even go home with
another rider and we straighten it all out the following week.

So I like every horse to be an easy loader and go in every trailer we
use.

A lot of SAR riders keep 2 or more horses for SAR, but as a rule they
bring only one per rider.

        Una Smith
        New Mexico

Mounted Search and Rescue
http://www.ibiblio.org/msar/

MSAR-Riders
http://www.ibiblio.org/msar/msar-riders.html